scholarly journals “It's the bride's day”: The paradox of women's emancipation

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Ursula Froschauer ◽  
Kevin Durrheim
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
South African ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Heterosexual Relationships ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Women's Emancipation ◽  
Objectification Of Women

The white wedding is a traditional ritual, governed by heteronormative conventions, which (re)produces stereotypical and patriarchal gender norms. In this study 10 white, South African, middle-class, heterosexual, newlywed couples were interviewed about their wedding ceremonies. The interviews were analysed using Parker's (2005) framework for discourse analytic reading. This helped us analyse two related discourses, the “fairy-tale” and “bride's day” discourse that allowed couples to justify gender unequal practices. The findings suggest that wedding discourses encourage (1) the objectification of women and their treatment in a benevolently sexist manner, (2) the unequal distribution of wedding labour between the bride and groom and, ultimately, (3) the perpetuation of women's subordination in heterosexual relationships. Participating in the rituals of the white wedding maintains taken-for-granted heteronormative discourses that undermine gender equality and, ultimately, women's emancipation.

Accounting and gender equality in (times of) crisis: toward an accounting that accommodates for emotional work?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludivine Perray-Redslob ◽  
Dima Younes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Emotional Work ◽  
Emotional Display ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Traditional Roles

PurposeEmpirically, this paper questions whether accounting can help cope with crisis and preserve some form of feminist ideals. Theoretically, this paper aims to explore how accounting affects the division of emotional work in times of crisis.Design/methodology/approachThe paper relies on a qualitative study that investigates “life under lockdown” during the COVID crisis and focuses on middle-class well-educated couples aspiring for some form of gender equality and who introduced accounting tools (schedules, charts, to-do-lists, etc.) in their daily life to achieve it.FindingsThe paper argues that accounting tools are not able to prevent couples from adopting traditional ways of carrying out emotional work. By favoring the masculine way of displaying emotions, they make invisible women's efforts for comforting. They even mask the unequal distribution of emotional work under some form of “neoliberal equality”. Also, in a context where middle-class standards are perceived as crucial to meet for both parents to keep their social position, accounting tools, by holding parents accountable for these standards, let no time to find alternative ways of living. Consequently, traditional roles become impossible to reverse.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper investigates accounting, gender and emotions by showing the importance of making emotional work visible at a household but also at an organizational and societal level. It calls for an “integrative” emotional display that is crucial for resilience in times of crisis and invites to challenge neoliberal middle-class standards that make household life difficult for most women. Theoretically, it invites for further exploring how accounting tools are constructed and negotiated and how unpredictable elements of life other than emotions affect gender when accounting tools are introduced in times of crisis.Originality/valueThis article contributes to the literature on gender-in-accounting by introducing the concept of emotional work and showing how accounting tools affect the gendered division of emotional work in praxis.

Nuances in the Politics of Demand for Outsourced Housecleaning

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Lotika Singha
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Women's Work ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Women’S Work ◽  
Women's Emancipation ◽  
Household Labour ◽  
Status Enhancement ◽  
Risk Reducing

This chapter interrogates the ‘need’ to outsource domestic cleaning, alongside implications for gender equality and relationship quality in the outsourcing household. It argues that ‘need’ is not directly related to affluence or status enhancement. The analysis of division of household labour when cleaning is outsourced shows that there is still plenty of housework for service-users to do themselves, particularly tidying up or ‘picking up’ after others. Sharing of this task could aid in progressing gender equality despite the outsourcing of cleaning. In this, if (middle-class) women do not see cleaning as their work, they will not expect (middle-class) men to undertake it either. The chapter concludes that claims of outsourced cleaning pitting the liberation of one class/race of women against that of another risk reducing women’s emancipation to freedom from housework and naturalising housework as women’s work.

Better Late than Never: Lessons from S V Jordan in Strengthening Women’s Participation in Litigation

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 505-518
Author(s):  
Amanda Spies
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
South African ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Amicus Curiae ◽  
The South ◽  
Women's Participation

In 2002 the South African Constitutional Court rejected the decriminalisation of sex work and for many years the judgment has constricted further debate on the topic. In 2013 organisations such as the Commission for Gender Equality have again publicly committed themselves toward lobbying for the decriminalisation of sex work. The renewed debate has necessitated a reconsideration of the Court’s decision in S v Jordan and this article focuses on the organisations that participated as amicus curiae in the matter. The discussion highlights the importance of organisational participation in litigation and how this participation could provide the context in which to consider future debates on the topic. 

scholarly journals Onderwysstudente se parodieë as hibridiese tekste: ’n navorsingsverslag

Literator ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-108
Author(s):  
E. Kruger
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Context Dependency ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Education Students ◽  
No Man's Land ◽  
Teacher Education Students

Parody as hybridic text: research report Parody can be seen as one of the techniques of selfreferentiality through which a consciousness of the context dependency of meaning is revealed in an aesthetic way. This article explores the theoretical background of parody as literary style against which the researcher challenged a group of teacher education students in a research programme to generate their own parodies. The task required that they choose a well-known fairy tale and use its structure to mock their own society. Students of another group were asked as the writers’ peers to read the stories in order to engage in a dialogue between encoder and decoder in the process of reception. The educational aim of the programme was to equip students to reflect critically and react creatively to social, political and economic issues that surround them. Furthermore, the researcher wanted to discover how these texts would generate a flexibility, fluency and hybridity in relationship with the students’ cultural identity and how they would project their own liminality in a no-man’s land between youth and adulthood. Analysis and interpretation of the parody texts revealed themes of late capitalism, materialism and consumerism, as well as typical student cultural manifestations of language usage and some of their existing attitudes toward the South African political society in post-apartheid. The students’ parodies have intertextual density with imitation and subversion of the original text contexts and values. The writers used a variety of stylistic techniques to generate double-voiced narratives as manifestation of literary creativity.

scholarly journals Feminist Pedagogy and the South African Curriculum: The case of Women and Food Security

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Teresa Dirsuweit
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
South African ◽  
Food Studies ◽  
Feminist Pedagogy ◽  
Policy Statement ◽  
The South ◽  
Shock Absorbers ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
Positive Representations

There is a food security crisis in South Africa and black working-class women are the shock absorbers of this crisis. It follows that where food studies are included in the South African curriculum, the relationship between women and food security should be understood and critiqued by learners. Improvements in gender equality have also been identified as one of the primary drivers of improvements in food security. In this paper, the South African curriculum is analysed in terms of food studies, gender studies and the promotion of gender equality. Using the lens of feminist pedagogy, a set of qualitative indicators were developed to assess the content and praxis of the curriculum. While there is content which deals with gender and with food, these are presented separately. In the Geography and Agriculture curricula, there is a marked lack of focus on gender concerns. This article concludes that the curriculum could be reoriented to include an awareness and critique of the nexus of women and food and that more positive representations of women as active and powerful agents are needed in the South African Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS).

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